Syria’s deadliest month of 2017 claims 3,000 lives

BEIRUT: Syria’s war killed at least 3,000 people including 955 civilians in September, the deadliest month of the conflict this year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Sunday (Monday in Manila). Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and millions displaced since the war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. It has since spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers, with Russia-backed regime forces and a US-supported alliance separately battling the Islamic State jihadist group in the country. The 955 civilians killed in September included 207 children, said the Britain-based Observatory. “More than 70 percent of the civilians were killed in regime and Russian air strikes, or in air raids of the international coalition” fighting IS, the monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman said.